The History of Roxy on Broadway: Glitz, Glamour and Ghosts

For Roxy on Broadway owner Paula Vrakas, her 2019 acquisition of the building at 554 South Broadway, previously Syntax Physic Opera, was fate.

"You walked in and it was this complete mood. It wasn't just another spot to go to. You felt like you were in a different time, and you felt like you were in a different city," she says, recalling the night her dinner plans took her to Syntax in 2017. "We sat on the bar side and had incredible Navajo fry bread and food and wine. ... We just had a hoot, a-hootin' and a-hollerin'. We were drunk by the end."

The glittering ambience and kinship of that night is still a treasured memory. So when Vrakas discovered that Syntax owner Jonathan Bitz was closing his spot, she returned with a new goal: to open a venue in Colorado and finally have a permanent tie to Denver, a city she had become infatuated with after numerous family trips, backpacking escapades and hiking adventures.

At the time, Vrakas was based in California — "If you're wearing leggings, they'd better be Lululemons," she jokes — where she and a group of partners had opened a Roxy in Encinitas in 2016. The newly revamped, 1920s-style restaurant was named after its longtime predecessor, Roxy Restaurant and Ice Cream, which had occupied the space since 1978.

"You're only as strong as the people that come before you. In this case, Roxy came before us, and they laid the groundwork for an incredible community-based business that I didn't want to just ignore," Vrakas explains. "A business that has been around since 1978 is a big deal, and if I can continue that legacy and...goodwill surrounding a name, then that's absolutely what I want to do."

Like Syntax, her joint had a striking mix of decadent food and varied music alongside a solid community reputation. But there were other similarities between the two venues that were too uncanny for Vrakas to ignore.

"I'm looking at this space to [lease] it, and there were all these weird nuances where I was like, 'Is this real life?' For example, the floor when you walk in, that small tile is the same tile we have in Encinitas," she says. "The sign on the top of the building, the gramophone, I haven't changed it, because that's been [the Roxy Encinitas] logo since 2016. I have it tattooed on my arm. ... It feels like it's meant to be."

The building at 554 South Broadway was built in 1938, not long after the glamorous ’20s, Vrakas's decade of choice and the theme of both Roxy venues. The building has a storied history, but live music, good food and company are etched into its walls. It shapeshifted from club to club, turning from the Safari Lounge to Conley's Nostalgia to Atrium Bar and Grill to The Bar to Syntax. Each venue attracted talented performers — a young Bob Dylan once played there; later, the Lumineers rehearsed in the basement and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats dominated the stage. Despite the constant change in tenants, the building was owned by the man who constructed it, the late Henry Heuerman, until 2013. His son, Henry R. Heuerman, is Vrakas's landlord.

According to the Roxy staff, the building is also home to several ghosts. "It is extremely haunted with very, very good spirits," Vrakas shares. "They protect the space. We have seven or nine different spirits that protect different areas of the building at any given time. If we do anything wrong, they always give us little warnings. They'll break a stair tread or they'll knock a window, or the speakeasy door will be off when we come in.

"They say that spirits go back to the space they had the most fun at or had the most memories of," she adds, "so if there are that many spirits in the building, it must have been a cool spot for the whole time it has been open."

Vrakas opened Roxy on Broadway in July 2019. But the Roxy name was too similar to the longtime venue Roxy Theatre, at 2549 Welton Street, for some folks' liking, causing some backlash in the community, an issue only further exacerbated by Vrakas's "California transplant" status, she recalls. But Vrakas says she ironed that out with the Roxy Theatre's owners, noting that "they're great friends. During COVID, they put a sign on their marquee that said, 'Go visit our friends at Roxy on Broadway.' Those guys are awesome."

Barely six months after the staff at Broadway on Roxy began pouring cocktails, COVID struck and all of Denver's restaurants and venues closed their doors. Vrakas juggled new laws and COVID restrictions in both California and Colorado, cut staff and worked to keep both businesses afloat. That year also brought serious illness: Two of Vrakas's friends were diagnosed with cancer within days of each other, and Vrakas herself underwent surgery to remove a brain aneurysm (nicknamed Fred) in March 2021.

"COVID knocked the wind out of my sails quite a bit," she says, noting that it took until December 2023 for Roxy on Broadway to move off shaky grounds. And surprisingly, a recent break-in didn't splinter Vrakas's faith in the venue or the community. "I think I got down on myself, and then this break-in sort of opened my eyes," she says. "We got some good people around us, ya know?"

Despite the hardships, Vrakas is still as in love with the Roxy as she was in 2019. "It doesn't happen very often, but every now and again, you take a step out of your body and you look around the room, and it's just everyone smiling and enjoying themselves," she says dreamily. "I'll be running around doing stuff, and it doesn't happen very often, but...you catch yourself. And you look. And the only word I can use to describe it is 'joy.' Everyone is having a good time. That's the reason I'm doing what I'm doing."